1、MAY 2025Operational Fires in the Age of PunishmentBy:Benjamin Jensen and Jose M.Macias IIIFor over a century,military professionals have treated operational fires as the backbone of modern campaignsshaping the battlefield,degrading enemy formations,and setting the conditions for maneuver.But what ha
2、ppens when that logic breaks down?What if long-range strikes become less about shaping operations and more about shaping narrativesused not to support a ground advance but to terrorize civilians and coerce political outcomes?That is the story emerging from Russias war in Ukraine.Despite inheriting a
3、 military doctrine steeped in deep battle,reconnaissance-strike complexes,and precision noncontact warfare,Russia has consistently failed to employ operational fires in a way that reflects this legacy.Instead,firepower has become unmoored from maneuver.Russian missile salvos and loitering drone atta
4、cks increasingly appear to serve a punitive,strategic coercion logic rather than a campaign to dislocate Ukrainian defenses or synchronize effects across domains.Chaos reigns along an extended front line defined by human wave attacks,thousands of small first-person view(FPV)drones,and artillery fire
